Productive Group Work: How to Engage Students, Build Teamwork, and Promote Understanding

I'm always a bit skeptical when reading anything about group work. As an "A" student frequently grouped with "B" and "C" students throughout school, I generally found myself doing the lion's share of the work while the others in my group got a free ride on the assignment. Teachers looked only at the final product and had no way of evaluating individual students' input. I was interested in finding out how Frey, Fisher, and Everlove proposed that group work be carried out. I was impressed that right up front they acknowledged some of the pitfalls of group work, among them that the burden frequently falls on one student, and the other students learn little or nothing. (Hmm. *That* sounds familiar.) They went from there to proposing numerous activities and methods that would help ensure that all students are accountable for learning (both their own learning and others'). Examples from different grade levels and subject areas helped illustrate their assertions. Frey, Fisher, and Everlove make a strong case for the importance of actually *teaching* students how to work in groups, rather than just throwing students into groups and expecting them to figure it out. Many of us in the working world have had the experience both of working on teams with others in our professional area and with teams across professional areas to solve problems and to come up with the most efficient and effective ways of carrying out our mission by taking and expanding on the best ideas we can come up with. Such an essential life skill shouldn't be left to chance. After reading this book, I feel that it's possible to have group activities that benefit all students, and they might even work among pretty young children. But activities must be carefully structured and equally carefully monitored in order to maximize student learning. This book tells how to do that. Teacher commitment to a group-learning process is essential to making cooperative lessons truly effective. Ideally, a whole school would adopt a cooperative approach, with teachers sharing ideas on cooperative activities and techniques for teaching and supporting this type of learning. It won't happen on its own. But when a teacher (or a school) makes this a priority, students will find themselves at an enormous advantage both now and later in life.